Rooks and Romanticide Read Online Free PDF Page B

almost curls just behind the ears.
    â€œOh, did you want to dance?” Cain smirked, pleased by his own scathing humor. “Let me guess, your favorite author is Oscar Wilde.”
    The man in the black mask laughed. It was a confident laugh, a charming laugh, a dry, rustling laugh that was totally unaffected by Cain’s curt jab. A laugh that said, Ah, you’ve caught me, but two can play at that game .
    Cain took the opportunity to move back into the crowd, gaze lingering on the laughing stranger, shoulders tense. Who was this fellow anyway? A Dietrich supporter, obviously, or the son of a Dietrich patron. God, but why did the laughter catch him up so? Why was he wasting his time with this fool in the first place? Briefly he considered having the young man thrown out, just out of giddy spite, but the ball would be unbearable again if he did that. The rest of the masquerade threatened to destroy his sanity tonight, and sometimes it was nice just to bicker and banter with strangers who could hold their own—
    Cain snatched a glass of port from a passing waiter and threw it back in one hasty swallow. And as his vision leveled again, of course, there he was , quick and efficient as a ghost. That cocky stranger, smiling at him from behind the elegant black mask as he danced by with yet another unsuspecting lady.
    Cain scoffed. He was not about to be trumped. He turned, shoving his empty glass into the hands of some gentleman behind him and taking the hand of the woman at his side. The man sputtered at first, angry, but he seemed to get over it quickly, smoking a fat cigar and cradling a large tumbler of brandy.
    Cain led the lady with far from a patient step, scanning the faces around them intently until finally catching sight of the feathered mask and curious smile once more over the woman’s bare shoulder, near the bushes. Cain turned, drifting closer to the young man’s side until their elbows brushed.
    â€œIs playing this game of cat and mouse really more entertaining than the offered festivities?” Cain demanded under his breath. The nighttime air fell to voices and commotion as the music from the vestibule came to an end and the dancing stopped until the next piece was struck up. The woman Cain had stolen smiled and gave a warm glance before moving off to find her date again, and the young man in the black mask motioned his own dance partner off elsewhere. She gave a little curtsey before hurrying off toward a group of girls, waiting on the other side of the patio with faces just as pink as hers.
    Cain cast the masked man a cold and calculating eye. The masked man peered back, still smirking in that sly and disarming way.
    â€œForgive me,” the masked man confessed below the buzz of the crowd, “I’m just honored to have the Death of the Ruslanivs playing with me.”
    Cain looked away with a little huff, stunned by the shy jump of his own heart. He’d had probably a little too much to drink already, enough to loosen his usually oh-so-tight nerves. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he scoffed, but the truth was, if he really didn’t want to waste his time on this fellow, he would have moved away already.
    â€œIt’s someone else’s satire, isn’t it?” the young man observed.
    Cain bristled. “It’s my costume, isn’t it?” he fired back.
    â€œBut you’re not wearing it,” the masked man murmured. “It’s wearing you.”
    Cain shrugged and shook his head, slowly, and limply, clamming up at how easily the man could see through him. “I’m not really one for lampooning and parodying. Poking fun, sure. But this kind of mockery is a waste of hatred and I have to wear the ugly Ruslaniv crest too. No, I’m more prone to direct and rather undiluted hostility.”
    The masked man smirked faintly, regarding Cain with hooded eyes. He didn’t say anything, but something seemed to pass between them then,